8 Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino LXIII – 2/2023
The following special issue contains articles written by scholars from several 
Eastern and Western European countries. The editors hope to encourage a shift in 
the debate about the 1990s, a period that has certainly received enough academic and 
popular attention, at least in the former socialist countries. Still, it is our sincere belief 
that a substantial modification is needed in order to supplement the previous emphasis 
on the national social and economic policies with a broader transnational context. 
The first versions of most papers contained in this issue were presented at the 
workshop titled “Eastern Enlargement or an All-European Transformation? The 1990s 
in European Politics”, held in Ljubljana on 29 September 2022 and organised by the 
Institutes of Contemporary History in Ljubljana and at the Czech Academy of Science 
in Prague. The purpose of the event was to continue the organisers’ successful coop-
eration with other specialists within the EuParl.net network, which has produced a 
number of fascinating comparative projects exploring the European parliamentary 
history, cultures, and institutions. 
We realised that our view of the post-1989 decade while observing the differ-
ences between the Slovenian and Czech(oslovak) institutional, economic, and social 
transformations tended to be restricted to the former political East. Now we sought 
to employ a broader European perspective. Following the former communist coun-
tries’ accession to the European Union seemed like an obvious next thing to do. Many 
governments applied to join the European Union during the period under consider-
ation, and their domestic elites began to relate intensively to the actors, processes, and 
requirements for membership. Simultaneously, however, Western Europe was equally 
transformed by the implementation of the Maastricht Treaty, and stronger and longer-
lasting groups critical of the European integration process emerged in many countries. 
The present special issue thus represents the first attempt to explore the overlapping 
two contexts, bring the previously exclusive perspectives together, and rethink the 
forms and concepts of the Europeanisation of national policies.
It is a great honour to have Mark Gilbert, the author of European Integration: The 
Political History and co-editor of Euroscepticisms: The Historical Roots of a Political 
Challenge,1 join the debate. He has brought a striking analytical distance, experience, 
and, indeed, humour to this issue by comparing the British and Italian perceptions 
1 Mark Gilbert, European Integration: A Political History (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020, 2nd edition). Euroscepticisms: The 
Historical Roots of a Political Challenge, eds. Mark Gilbert and Daniele Pasquinucci (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2020).
Eastern Enlargement, or  
an All-European Transformation?
9Adéla Gjuričová, Jure Gašparič: Eastern Enlargement or an All-European Transformation?
of the Maastricht Treaty in the opening article aptly titled “From the EC to the EU. 
Ready or Not”. 
Jure Gašparič and Andrej Pančur open the empirical section by addressing the 
politics of the accession – and the origins of Slovenian Euroscepticism – with a recon-
struction of the EU-related vocabulary and sentiments in the Slovenian Parliament, 
using the methods of corpus analysis. Meanwhile, Adéla Gjuričová devoted her con-
tribution to the Czech election campaign of 2002 and the stage of completing the 
negotiations with the EU, demonstrating the paradox of “Europeanising the national 
debate while ‘bilateralising’ the European politics.”
The special issue at hand also presents several case studies exploring unexpected 
actors and connections in building up the image of Europe both in and outside the 
Union. Marko Zajc has collected fascinating materials from the mid-1990s Nova revija 
circle and focused on the text titled “The Hour of European Truth for Slovenia” to deci-
pher the complicated intellectual position on Slovenian integration with the EU. Ivan 
Sablin studied the presence of the EU in the Russian State Duma debates, concluding 
that the Duma became an important stage for collecting anti-European sentiments 
vis-à-vis the government’s pro-European rhetoric at the time. Finally, Sven Jüngerkes 
and Tobias Kaiser presented their current project on the development of the German 
party system during the 1990s, encompassing the crucial issue of integrating the two 
Germanies’ political scenes and traditions.
In recent years, the European Union faced significant challenges. Once again, both 
its reform and its enlargement appear on the agenda. We hope this issue brings forward 
some ideas for a historical reflection that provides the necessary distance from daily 
responsibilities and pressures. Understanding political actors and national and inter-
national institutions remains one of the crucial manners of grasping the development, 
its risks, and its potential. Besides, it is always wise to examine longer continuities and 
be aware of the history – and historical connotations – of the supposedly brand-new 
phenomena.
Adéla Gjuričová and Jure Gašparič